“We can absolutely make pasta with actual sauce.”
Tavia’s markings blaze with delight. She launches herself at Dove, hugging her with the unrestrained affection of a child who’s been starved for female company. “Thank you! Papa, Dove’s going to teach me to cook!”
Over my daughter’s head, Dove’s eyes meet mine. Understanding passes between us—recognition that this hunger for female company goes deeper than pasta sauce. Tavia lost her mother three years ago. She’s been surrounded by male engineers and automated systems and a father who loves her fiercely but can’t replace what she’s missing.
The storm will clear. Dove will leave. Tavia will hurt.
I should maintain distance. Should prevent attachment.
But my daughter is smiling wider than she has in months, and Dove is looking at her with genuine warmth, and my carefully controlled existence is already fracturing.
“I’ll supervise,” I hear myself say. “To ensure kitchen safety protocols are observed.”
“Of course.” Dove’s smile is knowing. “Very important, kitchen safety.”
The kitchen becomes controlled chaos.
Dove moves through the space with confident efficiency, teaching Tavia how to prepare fresh pasta while I hover at the periphery, ostensibly monitoring but actually observing how naturally they work together.
And observing other things I shouldn’t be noticing.
Like how Dove’s hands move—capable and sure, flour dusting her fingers as she demonstrates technique. How she bites her lower lip when concentrating. How she pushes her sleeves up to her elbows, revealing forearms that are somehow both soft and strong.
“Okay, so you want to make a well in the flour like this,” Dove demonstrates, her hands creating a crater in the white powder, “and crack the eggs into the center.”
“How many eggs?”
“For three people? Four should do it. Here, you try.”
Tavia cracks an egg with careful concentration, getting shell fragments in the mixture. “Oops.”
“No problem, we’ll fish those out. Everyone gets shells sometimes.” Dove helps her pick out the fragments, patient and encouraging. “My first attempt at pasta, I got so much shell in there it was basically an egg-and-calcium supplement.”
“Really?”
“Really. The smuggler I was apprenticed to said it built character. And strong bones.”
I find myself stepping closer, drawn by their easy warmth. “You apprenticed with smugglers?”
“Long story. Involves being seventeen, broke, and making questionable life choices.” She guides Tavia’s hands throughmixing the dough. “The food skills transferred to legal employment, so it worked out.”
“What were you smuggling?”
“Mostly medical supplies to planets with import restrictions. Some contraband spices. Once, accidentally, a very angry lizard creature that we thought was cargo but turned out to be a stowaway.”
Tavia giggles. “What happened to the lizard?”
“He became the ship’s mascot. Named him Pickles, actually—before the AI. I have a theme.”
“You name things after preserved vegetables?”
“I name things after my emotional state when I encounter them. I was very stressed when I found both the lizard and the AI core.”
Heat spreads across my shoulders again. “This explains concerning amounts about your decision-making process.”
“Hey, my decision-making is excellent. Chaotic, but excellent.”
She’s not wrong. The evidence suggests unconventional brilliance rather than poor judgment.
